To hold a successful yard sale, you need to plan and be prepared. Yes, you are going to have to put some leg work in! Start pricing and organizing well before the sale day. If you have a garage, the night before the sale start setting things up on tables. It is much easier for shoppers to see your items if they are organized. As a frequent yard sale shopper, if I see a box full of odd items I am unlikely to sort through the mess. Having your items properly displayed will help them sell.

If you are selling nicer clothes, make a clothes line. Hanging the nicer clothes will attract more attention to the items. If you have high ticket items or furniture, make sure people can see them as they drive by. Yard salers will often do a drive by quickly scout out your goods. Make them want to stop.

Be ready. This means getting up early on a Saturday (the best day to hold the sale by the way.). Most yard salers get an early start. You can advertise “No Early Birds” but I can guarantee people will be there before 8 am. I always advertised my sale to start at 8 am but I tried to be ready by 7:30. That is why setting up some items the night before is helpful!

Make sure you have adequate change; one and five dollar bills and quarters. Bags are also a nice touch. Just start saving your grocery bags. Keep a roll of masking tape and a sharpie handy. If items are not moving, discount them. As the time goes by, I discount items further. I don’t want to pack all of the leftovers up! If you are going to be donating the items anyways, you might as well get something for them.

Anyone planning on having a yard sale soon?

Now it’s your turn!

If you are a blogger, write a post about your idea for making dollars out of change. It can be on any topic as long as it has to do with saving money. Please place a link back to Madame Deals in your post. Then come back here and add your post URL to the linky. Please post directly to your post and not your homepage.

If you do not have a blog, we still welcome and encourage your participation! Please leave your thoughts in the in a comment below!

[…] Running a Successful Yard Sale: This is the last in a 3 part series on Madame Deals. Every summer, I say I’m not doing another yard sale. Every spring, when we’re decluttering, I start planning the next one! I’m hoping these tips will help make it our most successful one yet. […]